Wikimedia Forum/Archives/2018-04

Please do not post any new comments on this page. This is a discussion archive first created in April 2018, although the comments contained were likely posted before and after this date. See current discussion or the archives index.

Seeking in a video

Did Wikimedia just disable seeking in a video?

I noticed like 2 months ago or so that when I play a video (like that in w:The Sheik (film)#Cast), I can't seek the video. It's very annoying because there may be extremely long clips that I don't want to watch in full or that I want to repeat a part.

If there's something I could do to enable seeking, please let me know. If no one knows, please tell me who to ask. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 14:20, 2 April 2018 (UTC)

@Mahmudmasri: This may be something more appropriately asked on w:WP:VPT. At least it will be potentially responded to faster by someone more knowledgeable. It may need a phab ticket. Killiondude (talk) 17:11, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

Note: This was asked at w:WP:VPT#Videos do not seek anymore and the bug is tracked at phab:T188878. --Quiddity (WMF) (talk) 21:37, 10 April 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 11:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Restricted Abuse Log?

I have a quick question: why can only unblocked users view the Abuse Log? I am blocked from enwiki and when I view the abuse log (a public log), I get a blocked notice. Ups and Downs (↕) 05:08, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

You have no specific user related restrictions at Meta. If you cannot view lines in Special:AbuseLog it will be due to the filter on the specific entries. If you are talking about English Wikipedia's abuse log, then you are at the wrong place for the question, it is either a configuration of enWP, or it is a component of the Mediawiki application, neither are pertinent here. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:41, 3 April 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 11:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Volunteering

(Topic moved to here from Meta talk:About/hi#Hello sir, @Pawantiwari9575. --Pipetricker (talk) 09:52, 14 April 2018 (UTC))

Sir, can i work with wikipedia as a volunteer . I am from india and i am good in hindi language so can i work with wikipedia as a volunteer in Hindi language?. Pawantiwari9575 (talk) 20:43, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

@Pawantiwari9575: try hi:विकिपीडिया:प्रश्न or your Indian chapter of Wikimedia as your starting points. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:09, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 11:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia video standards

I was thinking that there is a lot of video material throughout the internet which aims to explain certain subjects and how they work, like physics, biology, some history videos explaining specific historical battles, i mean, stuff that can be considered wikipedia content to some extent. So I had the idea: "what if wikipedia allowed for links to related videos?"

Like, on the bottom of an article page there would be a topic where editers can paste links to videos that explain the subject, not on the references topic but on its own video topic. This could potentially improve/ease the understanding of a subject for readers. But for it to happen, I believe 2 things would be important: 1 would be a page with strict standards so that people could know what can be linked and what can't. (as to prevent videos with unnecessary information or self promotion for example)

2nd would be a Wiki certificate that can be given to videos, proving that they have enciclopedia content. Certificating videos would encourage the people who make them to base themselves on the wiki standards in order to be considered serious material, as having this certificate shows to their main public that the video could be trusted.

I don't have the time to start off a project based on this idea, neither know if it has been tried before or even if its viable, so i decided to ask for opinions here. — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Delpreti (talk)

You can add freely licensed images to Wikipedia articles. Materials which are not freely licensed may be used as a source for creating your own video materials. Gryllida 02:03, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 11:26, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

Unpublished spam still appearing in English

Once again, yes once again...

CNBanner:WMILGLAM2018Scholarships-Centralnotice-WMIL Glam2018 Scholarships 1/cy

This issue wasn't sorted out last time, and the problem persists; the plethora of Meta banners seems too difficult for anyone to understand let alone sort out. Please remove this monolingual (English) banner, if you're unable to publish the local language which was translated 24 hours ago. Thanks. Llywelyn2000 (talk) 16:23, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Published now. Stryn (talk) 13:39, 18 April 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 11:27, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

May I ask a full investigation to a zhwiki administrator?

This zhwiki administrator @AT (his username is AT) recently deleted over 20 wikipages I translated, pages like "Lists of Portuguese people", "Lists of Russian people" and so on, I tried to translate these pages into chinese, and @AT deleted them.

From January 15 to April 15, I post a lot in the zhwiki community, I tried to disscuss with @at but it didn't help. From what I see @AT just make some excuse and pretend to disscuss but actually did not care at all. And @AT got some followers to justify the whole thing for him. In this post[1] I list all the reasons @AT and his followers mentioned, I explain every single reason, but @AT change subject all the time, anyone could see that from that post.

I then post in the zhwiki community ask to remove @AT's administrator job, that pissed off his followers, I got mocked and bullied, my words got twisted, I got blocked 3 times, none is with right reason. @AT and his followers acted like a dictator and his musclemen.

Another thing is this user @Dingruogu, i consider him one of @AT's followers. He is the guy put "Lists of Portuguese people" and "List of Swiss people" and about 20 other pages into the 'Wikipedia:Articles for deletion' then @AT deleted them all. Most recently he tried to delete my another page "Igor Pavlov", known as the creater of the file archiver 7-Zip, I translated "Igor Pavlov" into chinese and he wants to delete it. And just to fit his need, he also changed the enwiki page of "Igor Pavlov" [2]

I know the whole thing happened in zhwiki, and it is indepent to enwiki. but with all the post I did not got much help from othe zhwiki administrators, they remain silence about the deletion, that makes me no choice but ask help from the enwiki and WMF.

If a administrator could delete fine wikipedia pages he doesn't like and other administrators remain silence and the one against him got mocked got bullied got blocked. Then it is not worth editing wikipedia or donate to wikipedia.

With all above, for the good of wikipedia, May I ask a full investigation to this zhwiki administrator?--Jasonnn~zhwiki (talk) 14:09, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

This is not the place to ask for action at hWP, that place is at zhWP. Each wiki is primarily self-governing with regard to deletion policies, and their scope. Similarly review processes of administrators belong at those wikis according to their processes. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:28, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

They remain silence in zhWP, that is why i call for help in the enwiki.--Jasonnn~zhwiki (talk) 12:10, 30 April 2018 (UTC)

AT was just there to perform his duties on closing AFD. I may say it is not the best practice, anyway, for the whole community to "eradicate" loads of articles with similar nature, without a detailed discussion on the inclusion policies beforehand. However, what AT done did follows the policies and guidelines on the Chinese Wikipedia. Therefore, no one support your proposals on de-sysop for AT. Please stay calms and also think about what you have done. I would like to invite you to join the discussion on the inclusions of lists of person which coming from a nation at VP on Chinese Wikipedia. For the issue happened on English Wikipedia, I would rather suggests following their procedures on appealing the decision.--J.Wong 01:18, 1 May 2018 (UTC)

invite me to a discussion? Did you remember you blocked me for a month with suspicious reasons? I can't edit any pages in zhwiki when i am blocked. That makes your invitation very hypocritical.--Jasonnn~zhwiki (talk) 03:18, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

Take this conversation to a user talk page, please do not have your conversation here. — billinghurst sDrewth 08:49, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

This section was archived on a request by: — billinghurst sDrewth 08:49, 2 May 2018 (UTC)

WMDE Technical Wishes/Rollback/Feedback round

A significant change to the rollback function is being discussed above. --Rs chen 7754 05:09, 20 April 2018 (UTC)

What if any autoconfirmed users could move file?

Hello,

Currently, by default, only sysops can move files on a Wikimedia wiki.

Some wikis like Commons have special groups and procedure to move files. But others follow the default Wikimedia setting.

Now we've tested this feature for several years without any major issues, would you agree to allow any autoconfirmed users to move a file (individual wikis would be allowed to change this setting)? --Dereckson (talk) 00:58, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

References:

@Dereckson: Not for the Wikisources. It would be quite problematic for users to break the nexus between files and index pages—so here we are talking djvu and pdf files. I would think that the default should not be move, and allow wikis that wish to do that following local consensus can then do so. — billinghurst sDrewth 02:14, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

I strongly support making file move permissions more liberal. I think having a separate "file movers" user group is unnecessary and we should, at minimum, treat file moves the same as page moves. I'd actually prefer that we be more generous with page move permissions as well. --MZMcBride (talk) 21:43, 15 April 2018 (UTC)

Is there a need to force this change on communities? For the most part they can already decide to let "autoconfirmed" or any other group they want have this access. Some communities don't even allow autoconfirmed users to upload files at all (e.g. arwiki, cewiki, kowiki). — xaosflux ^Talk 15:06, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

“Not be blocked on more than one project”

Hello.
You know, “not be blocked on more than one project” is a standard qualification requirement for global elections, such as of the Board of Trustees. But is was introduced a long time ago, when there was far fewer wikis under the Wikimedia banner. Today there are about nine hundreds projects; one can hardly imagine that many in 2009, when SUL became mandatory. Only few projects have a functional community able to enforce some policy and responsibility onto sysops. A random project, most probably, is one effectively controlled by a small clique. What would happen when there will be 9000 projects, each having own rules, own repertoire of sysops and practice of their responsibility? OK, closer to the nowadays conditions.

Today I am blocked in ka.Wikipedia because used rollback against a serial vandal; see details here. ~~It is probable that the block will not be lifted—until expires—because I’m Russian. You know how these guys are inclined to Russians today.~~ In 2008 I was hounded in simple.Wikipedia by two incompetent users and then indef-blocked, for which later Majorly apologized publicly. He reviewed the block because circumstances required to build favourable public relations abroad. Unless this serious menace to the Simple English Wikipedia as a whole, it would be perfectly possible for me to remain blocked there up to today. In this case I’d become unqualified to cast votes in any global election now. Although some would be delighted, a random Wikimedian most probably agrees that it would be a nonsense. Moreover, ru.Wikipedia sometimes block users who criticize them in social media (although in most cases they ignore it). With my stance towards ru.Wikipedia it is possible for me not only be barred from all global elections, but barred with a margin. I already hear the advice: appeal the blocks. My answer, at least wrt ka. and simple. incidents: if they have no time to distinguish me from an obvious vandal sock and treat such kinds of strangers on par without any inquiry, then I have no time to argue with them too. Are such admins very busy beavers but not replaceable because wield the rare Community Trust™? Ordinary janitors and other workers happy to be admitted to the banhammer? I don’t care. Some people will certainly detract me for arrogance and rudeness, but this approach is indeed good. If users constituting the bulk of the project agree—explicitly or implicitly—with random blocks, then it is their right to encourage admins shoot at strangers randomly, and we have no evident pretext to change anything about that. Up to local communities to decide how thoroughly blocks have to be reviewed—because it, generally, consumes resources—but it’s also their responsibility in maintaining their particular project. Projects are mostly self-governed. The change must happen in the global Wikimedia community’s view on local blocks.

Now, the proposal.
If a Wikimedia user is blocked on two or more projects, then s/he may apply for qualification as an established member of at least two projects. Such qualification is to be made with the following steps:

The user U chooses two officials O₁, O₂ in two distinct and active Wikimedia projects P₁, P₂. Each O_k has to be a bureaucrat or an ArbCom member in P_k.
Ensure that O₁ does not belong to the establishment—sysop, ArbCom member (including former ones)…—of P₂, and the same for O₂ wrt P₁.
U creates an application (a section in Meta:User_talk, or a separate page – not important).
After start of the voting O₁ and O₂ sign it, and the last signatory places a template attracting attention of a steward.
A steward verifies that conditions are met and marks the application as approved.
U can cast his/her vote then.

Or can anybody develop a better solution, please? Something must be changed here. Persisting with the old rule will inevitably lead to injustice and discrimination against people with high cross-wiki activity. The same for people whose foes took over a Wikimedia project – even only one project. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:53, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, no, we shouldn't have some super-complicated formula. If a small-wiki sysop makes a bad block you can report it to the stewards. I've just followed up regarding yours. – Ajraddatz (talk) 15:59, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

@Ajraddatz: can you please not divert discussion from the specific grievance? There is some central interference to local affairs, but I hold the position that specific projects may block any people they deem undesirable. And many will agree, sure. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 16:07, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I'm not intentionally diverting any discussion. I oppose any complex formula like the one above when determining eligibility to vote - I think that the current rule works fine. Note that you are only blocked on one project, so you would still be able to vote in a global election. I am also commenting on your specific case, and the general response that can be taken when bad blocks are made by local admins, particularly of users active in xwiki work. – Ajraddatz (talk) 16:25, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I believe the formula is indeed not workable but the problem is real (I was once blocked on ru.wv despite having zero edits there by an idiot admin0. Should we have smth like a clearance procedure? If two blocks are on smaller wikis, and the user is active on major wikis and not blocked there, there should be some way to let them vote?--Ymblanter (talk) 16:15, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

I don't think that small wiki vs. big wiki should be a consideration here. Nemo 17:07, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Well, it would be nice to have any consideration at all.--Ymblanter (talk) 17:34, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

The Election Committee can make case by case exceptions at user requests. Ruslik (talk) 18:14, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

@Ruslik0: there should be a policy protecting us, not authoritarian “exceptions”. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:33, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment [some tl;dr]. Complex formulae is not the solution. If there are multiple blocks then a review process to check, maybe resolve, or to undertake a determination to allow voting is preferable. That we have cases of political blocking is unfortunate and should be minimised as far as reasonably possible, and people of determined reasonable standing within the WMF community should not be excluded from voting without the possibility of review, or some other reasonable consensus process. — billinghurst sDrewth 23:40, 26 April 2018 (UTC)
@Billinghurst: my proposal was namely a precise definition what a “determined reasonable standing within the WMF community” may denote. Of course, you may despise my project for complexity of the procedure envisaged, but where is your project? “Review, or some other reasonable consensus process” is not a workable proposal. The Election Committee should be provided with certain instructions on qualification of voters, having minimal ambiguity. And again, I deem that counting of blocks (instead of projects where the user is established) is nowadays a totally foul approach and must be eventually phased out. Hence “a review process to check, maybe resolve” brings nothing good about qualification – it may be helpful to mitigate some other problems. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 10:42, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
Please do not inject words that I did not say. I did not say that I despised anything. I am also not a fan of a combative approach, as it stifles open debate and the expression of ideas.
At this point of time there is no evidence that the existing system is failing, nor that the governance provided by this committee is lacking. The election committee has responsibilities for the matters that you raise and I believe that they would welcome your making a reasoned submission to them. My commentary should be viewed that issues of multiple blocks can be addressed prior to elections as a normal course of business, and that the stewards are an avenue to provide advice to the election committee about users who may be unfairly disadvantaged by the application of a count. — billinghurst sDrewth 12:19, 27 April 2018 (UTC)
What means “a system is failing”? There will be always a plenty of people not blocked on more than one project, due to a pure probability theory with non-uniform distributions. But without a reasonable change many people will be disenfranchised in the next decade and their proportion will only grow over further years into the future. Incnis Mrsi (talk) 15:39, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

My apologies for aspersions about ka.Wikipedia. In fact, their administration demonstrated a degree of civilization unseen even in such healthy wikis as English Wikipedia (in the past, not the present-day one, of course). Incnis Mrsi (talk) 18:33, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

It seemed that the mistake have been identified, you have been unblocked on ka.Wikipedia. SA 13 Bro (talk) 20:22, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Comment. Probably the first thing that should always happen is that we should check situations like this for mistakes. Sometimes, they will be resolved, as this one was. Nevertheless, Incnis Mrsi is correct in stating that there are political control issues on a number of wikis, mostly (but not exclusively) smaller ones, and this can lead to the sort of trouble described above. At minimum, the possibility that the Election Committee can make exceptions (per Ruslik0) needs to be stated. But I do think there needs to be a policy (or guideline or something) on the books allowing a person to show cause that s/he ought to be allowed to vote, notwithstanding certain blocks. StevenJ81 (talk) 22:27, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

As someone who has been blocked on wiki's where I wasn't even active, I can relate to the issue raised by Incnis Mrsi. There should be room for exceptions to this rule. Guido den Broeder (talk) 18:08, 27 April 2018 (UTC)

Insulting spam mail

I get it, Wikimedia needs to do a fundraiser to keep the sites running. But please keep thinking on what you do...

I just got an e-mail from Wikimedia asking me to renew a donation I made years ago (2009), I rather think its pretty insulting as I already been blocked for more then 6 years on several projects. And the e-mail mentions that Wikipedia is free to edit for everyone...

Maybe don't send it to blocked people, as its insulting... — The preceding unsigned comment was added by Abigor (talk) 11:43, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

@DStrine (WMF): to note. — billinghurst sDrewth 11:54, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

What a disgrace and not exactly a rare case! I think we ought to do something against self-announced "wikipedians" who are rude and bully others. What about a suspension of administrative privileges which they did obviously abuse? Many administrators are not up for their role and its responsibilities. Platonykiss (talk) 04:25, 30 April 2018 (UTC)